There’s more than one way to grow jobs and reduce unemployment, as two articles in this week’s issue illustrate.
The first, on page 5, is an example of landing a big fish, as Fall River is poised to do in getting Amazon.com Inc. to invest more than $200 million in a new distribution center. If the city and neighboring Freetown can work out a package of local tax breaks, Seattle-based Amazon has promised to create at least 1,000 jobs over the next three years.
A deal would be the culmination of two and a half years of talks. Fall River officials deserve kudos for their dogged pursuit of the online retail giant, who could put a major dent in the city’s double-digit unemployment.
Rather than focus on luring new businesses to Rhode Island, outgoing Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee has advocated for helping existing local businesses.
Monthly job fairs being held at the Quonset Business Park are one example, with the state Department of Labor and Training one of the sponsors. As a story on page 8 shows, a host of local employers are also participating.
So which approach works best? The answer is, over time, neither works well without the other. Fall River landed Amazon because it has something Rhode Island doesn’t – an industrial park with space for a 1 million-square-foot building.
Rhode Island economic-development officials want a new industrial park in the state, to serve both new and existing businesses. Being able and ready to meet the needs of both is the only way the state can help move the local economy forward. •